DECEMBER 1, 1997:
Art and obsession have long been linked, at least as far as public perceptions
are concerned. Not that most obsessions are in any way artful -- far from it --
but the folklore of art and artists does seem a tad obsessive at times. We may
recall the story of Michelangelo laboring mightily over the Sistine Chapel
ceiling while sprawled flat on his back on a scaffold, or Van Gogh presenting a
lady friend with the gift of his severed ear.

There are various theories about art and obsession, most of them having to do
with the effort of holding a visual image in the mind for extended periods,
possibly even months or years at a time. Actually, computer nerds are far more
obsessive than most artists, but the effect is different somehow. We like to
think of artists freezing in a garret while painting the face of an angel by
candlelight -- not munching pizza at a desk strewn with cybergames and
software. But the two pursuits might be listed under Marshall McLuhan's old
maxim that "the medium is the message" (though not quite as McLuhan had
intended). In both cases, the process becomes its own rationale, a
self-fulfilling prophecy.

I've long regarded George Dunbar's work as obsessive, and his big new
retrospective at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Mining the Surfaces, did
nothing to change my mind. Comprising mostly his geometric metal leaf
paintings, the show shimmers with an uncanny mix of medievalism and modernism.
If it resonates obliquely enough to strike different people in different ways,
few will fail to notice the single-minded consistency running through it all.
In fact, Dunbar has done much the same sort of thing for more than 30 years
now.

Dunbar's familiar cloverleaf design is
evident in this untitled piece from 1997.

Coin du Lestin XXIX, 1996, is fairly typical, a symmetrical intersection
of circles, crosses and triangulations rendered in gold leaf over red, purple
and black clay. The effect is richly contemplative, evoking the symmetrical
stained-glass rose windows that crown the peaks of gothic cathedrals. Beyond
the Burgundian red and gold tone, however, the effect could almost be deco, or
even techno, so precisely "machined" is its overall appearance.

Also on view are his more loosely realized (if equally iconic) sculptures as
well as some earlier abstract expressionist-style paintings. Even so, the show
fairly glints like Fort Knox with the luster of precious metals, and it might
all seem eccentric were it not so sumptuously decorative. What goes on here? It
helps to know something of the background.

The scion of a prominent local legal clan, Dunbar is a World War II veteran
whose GI Bill enabled him to dispense with family precedent and study painting,
not court cases, at the Tyler School of Art school in Philadelphia. He returned
home to New Orleans to help launch the modernist movement (like Ida Kohlmeyer,
he is a veteran of the seminal Orleans Gallery). He took to home-building to
earn a living and is by now a dean of Northshore developers.

This may shed some light on the architectonic or structural qualities of these
works -- some of which suggest the cloverleaf exchanges of interstate highways
and such. We could almost say that Dunbar's paintings are more "constructed"
than painted. Sumptuously aloof, they are cool, dispassionate mandalas for the
contemplation of an elegant and orderly universe.

Obsessions of an equally meticulous if rather more personal sort are seen at
Earth & Fire, where Franklin Adams' latest art now hangs. Well, you can't
really wear this stuff, but you have to look twice just to make sure, so
amazingly realistic is the technique.

Outfit (III) is fairly emblematic, a pleated tuxedo shirt hanging
crisply if naturalistically on a clothes hanger. Rendered in smoke-toned
monochrome watercolor, the pleated white fabric looks as pristinely atmospheric
as one of Andrew Wyeth's sharply etched Pennsylvania landscapes -- an effect so
precisely textural you almost feel it in your fingertips as you look at it. But
the eye is soon distracted by a black silk bra hanging sensuously, decorously
down and over the neatly pleated shirt front.

It is all too consciously arranged to suggest any haphazard aftermath of
spontaneous passion, so we are left with intriguing contrasts: Victoria's
Secret under a Gentry facade. Other images of more conventionally comported
attire display to good effect Adams' near-renaissance draftsmanship. And, as
with so many of Dunbar's creations, these seem almost to have been constructed
as much as painted or drawn.

Adams uses his gift for precise realism to investigate the psychology of
surfaces, the inner life behind outer appearances. Like Dunbar, he imposes his
own obsessive kind of order upon the chaos of ordinary life.